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• All books purchased on this page using the "Buy Now" buttons will be sent autographed copies.

•  In case you prefer to order Kindle editions, would like to bundle your book order with others for free shipping, or would like your book(s) without an autograph, links to Amazon sales pages are provided .

• I believe in frugality! And I'm really green. To that purpose, your book (s) or items will be packed in recycled materials.

• Please note a gift of poetry (scroll down to Cherished Pulse) is yours for the asking with a purchase of any book from this page.

• Note that the shopping cart is by Google and it doesn't react like some. It sort of hovers. Nevertheless, I am so jazzed at finally having a cart for you.

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Survive and Thrive
HowToDoItFrugally
Books for Retailers

A Retailer’s Guide To Frugal In-Store Promotions
How to Beat Out Competitors to Make Your Store
The Go-To Place in Your Community

Award: USA Book News Finalist, business; Military Writers Society of America Author of the Month, 2010; Military Writer's Society of America Gold Award.

Buy direct from author, autographed:

Retailers need more than crossed fingers to get and keep customers. In-store promotion—everything from in-store branding to events—is the most effective and economical way to do that. This book gives retailers the benefit of Carolyn Howard-Johnson’s nearly three decades experience as founder and manager of her own chain of stores, a stint as a New York publicist and as a retail consultant and journalist. It is the first in the Survive and Thrive series for retailers in her USA Book News award-winning HowToDoItFrugally.com books.  For more information a review and a book trailer.      ISBN: 9781441467249

• Order direct from Amazon if you prefer.                                                         

• Order for Kindle Reader direct from Amazon.

• Order an e-book direct from the publisher.

•  

Frugal and Focused Tweeting for Retailers
How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Evens and Sales Techniques

Twitter is the Web phenomenon of the decade even though many say they "don't Get it," and even those who think they do "get it" appear to be missing a lot in terms of using it to market effectively. It is much more than a tell-all tool! This book will:

1 . Tell you how to set up a Twitter account easily
2.  Tell you how to keep it simple. What you can't ignore at the peril of poor marketing and what you can get away without doing just fine, thank you.
3.   Give you ideas on what you can tweet about--and guidelines for how much personal, how much marketing!

4. Help you get over your fear of marketing (or over being shy about writing tweets) by giving you examples of tweets with critiques (can you believe!) for you to learn from.
5. Help you with tips for keeping the time you spend on tweeting (and other social media) to a minimum.
6. Show you how to harness the power of an entire online campaign, both in terms of reaching your audience and in saving you tons of time.
7. Nope. Not every Twitter app known to Tweetdom! There are some 70,000 of them at last count. Only tried-and-true ones, the ones you need. EAN: 9781451546149

•  Order direct from Amazon if you prefer.                                                         

• Order for Kindle Reader direct from Amazon. Coming soon.

• Order an e-book from the publisher.

Your Blog, Your Business
The Frugal Retailer's Guide to Getting Customer Loyalty And Sales, Both In-Store and Online

Blogging is an essential part of any marketing plan, yet many avoid it because they simply don't know how to use it to their advantage of they fear the time it will take to maintain. Your Blog, Your Business convinces you of its importance, shows you how to cut the time it will take, and how to make it even more powerful by integrating it into an online media campaign. ISBN: 9781451591040

• Build a blog in five easy steps.
• Minimize the time it takes to manage a blog.
• Know what you can blog about.
• Integrate your blog with other social media--easily!
• Manage your blog frugally (read that "FREE," except for your time!)

• Order direct from Amazon if you prefer.  

• Order for Kindle Reader direct from Amazon. Coming soon.

• Order an e-book from the publisher.
                                                        

The Multi Award-Winning
HowToDoItFrugally
Books for Writers

The Frugal Editor:
Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success

Awards: Winner USA Book News Award, Reader Views Literary Award, New Generation Marketing  

 Buy direct from author, autographed:

There are gremlins out there determined to keep your work from being published, your book from being promoted. They -- resolved to embarrass you before the gatekeepers who can turn the key of success for you -- lurk in your subconscious and the depths of your computer programs. Whether you are a new or experienced author, The Frugal Editor will help you present whistle-clean copy (whether it's a one-page cover letter or your entire manuscript) to those who have the power to say "Yea" or "Nay."  ISBN: 9780978515874

• Order on Amazon in paperback.                                                

• Order the Kindle Edition from Amazon.

The Frugal Book Promoter:
How to Do What Your Publisher Won’t  

Awards: Winner USA Book News Award, Book Publicists of Southern California's Irwin Award 

Buy direct from author, autographed:

For only a few cents a day The Frugal Book Promoter assures your book the best possible start in life. Full of nitty - gritty how - tos for getting nearly-free publicity, Carolyn Howard-Johnson, an instructor for UCLA’s Writers’ Program, shares her professional experience as well as practical tips gleaned from the successes of her own book campaigns. She tells authors how to do what their publishers can’t or won’t and why authors can often do their own promotion better than a PR professional.
ISBN: 193299310X

A recommendation from BarnesandNobel.com: Feather Schwartz Foster, author.
Packed With Wonderful Information!  For anyone who has written a book of any kind - this is a must-have, and must-keep guide! Every chapter is filled with insights and how-tos and a whole bunch of where to finds!

• To order on Amazon in paperback.

• To Order a Kindle Edition from Amazon.

Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips for Writers
The Ultimate Frugal Booklet for Avoiding Word Trippers
and Crafting Gatekeeper-Perfect Copy

Whether you've just started blogging or have begun writing a full book, you know you've forgotten some of the homonyms you learned in fourth grade! And how long has it been since you addressed wordy constructions? How about the difference between unbreakable grammar rules and style choices. This little booklet is no designed to tell you everything! I mean, who wants to read a dictionary, page by page! But the Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips for Writers is a fun start, written with some humor, to get you started thinking about (and remembering!) all the little things that will keep you from making embarrassing errors in your writing. EAN-13: 9781450507653

Booklet Series: Only $6.95

• To order on Amazon in paperback.

• To order an e-book from publisher

• To order a Kindle Edition. Coming soon

The Great First Impression Book Proposal
Everything You Need To Know To Sell Your Book in 20 Minutes or Less

The perfect learning experience for those who want to wow an editor or agent in no time flat with only $6.95 out-of-pocket and 20 minutes out of a busy schedule.

This booklet is the result of author Carolyn Howard-Johnson's extensive work with clients who hate writing book proposals but hate learning how to write them even more. She found herself coaching them through the process rather than doing it for them, for who could possibly recreate the passion an author feels for his or her own book better than the author?  In doing so, she found she had written a booklet--not a tome--that took her clients only about twenty minutes to absorb. Voila!  The Great First Impression Book Proposal was born.
ISBN: 1453690956 EAN-13: 9781453690956

Booklet Series: Only $6.95

To order an E-book from publisher.
To order a Kindle Edition: Coming soon
To order a paperback on Amazon.
 

Fiction and True Short Stories

This is the Place:
A Novel Based on a True Story

Awards: Eight awards including Sime-Gen's Reviewer's Choice

Buy direct from author, autographed:

“When you live amidst beauty sometimes you don’t recognize discrimination
and, if you do, you prefer not to acknowledge it.”

A young journalist realizes that because she is half Mormon and half Protestant she is not suitable material for love. She delves into her Mormon heritage and journals her way through prejudice into redemption. She learns to mend her own life when she finds she cannot mend her world. This novel, set in Salt Lake City in the 50s, reveals not only complexities of the heart but the secrets of what some consider a mysterious place and culture. "This is the Place" has won eight awards including the Critics' Choice award.    ISBN:1588523521

"Howard-Johnson strengthens her novel with behind-the-scenes details of Mormon life and history in a book suitable for all collections, particularly those where . . . Orson Scott Card's religious books are popular" ~ Library Journal

To order on Amazon. Click on the New and Used button.

Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered

Awards: Three Awards including a New Millennium finalist for one of the stories                                                                                                             

Harkening explores the little white lies and solemn truths that one charming, idiosyncratic family loves to repeat. Each story is stitched to the next to become a saga of their sojourn from Michigan through a vanishing railroad town in New Mexico, then into Utah and finally (and happily), to a place where individuality can thrive. Harkening won three awards including Word Thunder's Excellence in Writing award. ISBN 1591295505                                                                         
 

• To Order on Amazon. Click on the New and Used button.

Poetry

Tracings,
A Chapbook of Poetry                                                                                                                      

Awards: Award of Excellence Military Writers Society of America,
Compulsive Readers 10 Best List

Tracings touches chords--both major and minor--for readers interested in nostalgia, tolerance, culture and aging. The author traces her life's experiences and for her it feels like "a movie reel running backwards." Tracings was named to the Compulsive Readers' Ten Best Reads list. This little chapbook comes with a navy satin ribbon bookmark, perfect for gift giving. Published by Finishing Line Press.   ISBN:1599240173

• To Order a paperback at Amazon.

Celebration Series
of
Poetry Chapbooks
Written with Magdalena Ball

She Wore Emerald Then
Reflections on Motherhood, A Chapbook of Poetry

Co-Authored with Magdalena Ball
Photography by May Lattanzio

Awards: USA Book News Finalist, poetry;
Military Writers Society of America, honorable mention, poetry.

"[Both] poets continue to write poems that don't sound either like banal Hallmark cards or the bitter-at-dysfunctional-family jeremiads that habitually torture MFA writing workshop participants." ~Kristin Johnson, screenwriter and founder of the Warrior Poets Project

She Wore Emerald Then is a collaboration on the subject of motherhood by award-winning poets Magdalena Ball and Carolyn Howard-Johnson, both of them mothers and daughters. They worked together on a book of love poetry called Cherished Pulse to the acclaim of reviewers. She Wore Emerald Then is illustrated with tender photographs by artist and poet May Lattanzio.  As it happens, it was released the week of death of Carolyn's mother—a fitting tribute. When ordered from this site it comes with a yellow satin ribbon bookmark. Self-Published in the fine tradition of poets everywhere.ISBN: 1438263791 ISBN 13: 978-1438263793  

• To Order from Amazon.

Coauthored with Magdalena Ball
Cover art by Vicki Thomas

Awards: USA Book News finalist for poetry

 ISBN: 1438263791 ISBN 13: 978-1438263793  

Carolyn calls this unsyrupy love poetry. It is part of the Celebration Series she and Magadalena Ball offer poetry lovers in place of traditional cards--for about the same price. For MyShelf.com  Willie Elliott  says it is “snapshots of love by two gifted poets.”

Only $6.95--Little more than a most greeting cards, less than some.

• To Order from Amazon.

• To order as an e-book from the publisher.

Blooming Red
Christmas poetry for the rational.

Coauthored with Magdalena Ball
Cover art by Vicki Thomas

Blooming Red is part of the special celebration gift book series. Readers and gift givers will find the holiday season as it is rarely seen within its pages.

Coming Soon!

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Newsletter Endorsements

 "Carolyn, from one newsletter publisher to another, I just wanted to let you know how super your newsletter is. I know how much work goes into these things, and yours is one of the very best---consistently chock fully of meaty tips---a must for authors and publishers! ~
Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound

"So, about 12 months ago, I began to read about do-it-yourself book publicity. One of the best books I came across was "The Frugal Book Promoter: How to do what your publisher won't" by Carolyn Howard-Johnson. If you're looking for 'nitty-gritty how-tos for getting nearly free publicity,' this is the book for you."
~Tim Bete, Director, Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop

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Proud Member of

www.wrwa.net

ABWA is a group of highly skilled networkering women in business.

Military Writers' Society of America

Honorary member of Publishers and Writers of San Diego.

Book Publicists of Southern California
(BPSC)  Pix: Proud Irwin Award Winners
Carolyn and Janet Goliger, l. to r.

Published Works Almanac